


Feel Good Hit Of The Summer

by jonnyhustle



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Fluff, Hockey Player Jamie Benn, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2015-12-16
Packaged: 2018-05-07 02:07:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5439476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonnyhustle/pseuds/jonnyhustle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>There’s a gun pressed to Tyler’s head.</i>
</p><p>  <i>Sure, it’s made of Lego and being wielded by a five-year-old, but he’s a disgruntled five-year-old and Tyler doesn’t trust him. </i></p><p>  <i>“Connor,” he pleads, hands held up in surrender, “Come on, dude, it doesn’t have to be this way.”</i><br/>***</p><p>  <b>Alternatively,<b> the five times Tyler wasn't expecting to see Jamie, and the one time he was. An alternate universe where Tyler Seguin is a preschool teacher and Jamie Benn is the uncle of Ellie, a student of Tyler's.</b></b></p>
            </blockquote>





	Feel Good Hit Of The Summer

There’s a gun pressed to Tyler’s head.

Sure, it’s made of Lego and being wielded by a five-year-old, but he’s a disgruntled five-year-old and Tyler doesn’t trust him. 

“Connor,” he pleads, hands held up in surrender, “Come on, dude, it doesn’t have to be this way.”

Connor doesn’t say anything, just presses the toy gun harder against Tyler’s temple. The rest of the kids are watching with baited breath, eyes wide as they look on in horror. 

Tyler closes his eyes, the children gasp, Connor says, “Bang!” 

Tyler clutches at his chest, tumbling backwards even though he was shot in the head. He groans pitifully, and then ramps it up a bit more when the children start laughing. Connor is standing over him, toes kicking at Tyler’s chest when he doesn’t move. 

“Mr. Seguin?” Connor asks, voice cautious.

Tyler ignores him, or at least he tries to, but then Connor is putting his sticky hands over Tyler’s face and forcibly opening his right eyelid. 

Tyler screams a manly scream and sits up, scaring Connor in the process.

“He’s a zombie!” Another child screams, and before he can stop the inevitable he has twenty-odd children running toward him with their tiny fists swinging.

“Enough! Enough,” he says, reaching down to grab the nearest offending limbs, “The bell is about to go, so we need to start packing up.” 

There’s a small cheer around the room because originally Tyler had told them that they were going to do mathematics. It had never been the plan, but math was the one thing they’d want to do even less than cleaning up their messes. They staged a mutiny, and they won, they didn’t have to do math this afternoon. But Tyler won too, because now they’re just relieved to be doing anything but learning addition. 

Tyler plays One Direction as they clean up. It spurs the boys to move faster since they know Tyler will turn the music off once the room is clean, and it also helps him build that relationship with his students. They dance around the room, and Tyler croons badly about the Best Song Ever, picking up a princess tiara that’s been thrown haphazardly on the floor and placing it on top of his head. It’ll at least keep his hands free while he’s still cleaning. 

The thing about working with small children is that you quickly learn not to be embarrassed. There already wasn’t a lot that left Tyler feeling self-conscious or uncomfortable, but he’s literally turned up to staff meetings with pink bows in his hair and went to the last Princess and Pirate Disco as a princess. 

He does not give a shit what anyone thinks, because it gets his kids to trust him and like him, and that’s what he needs to succeed at his job, to really help these children.

It’s the knock at the door that startles him just as he begins moving on from the Best Song Ever to What Makes You Beautiful. He’s got his finger pointed at a group of the kids, promising each and every one that they’re beautiful, when he looks up and just. 

Stops.

The thing is that a lot of the parents know Tyler by now. It’s heading toward the end of the year and the kids have been in his class for a couple of months, each one becoming used to the eccentric ways of the new preschool teacher. A lot of the parents have come to realise that Tyler doesn’t mind if they stick their heads in and watch the last couple of minutes of class from the back of the room; it keeps Tyler connected to the parents and everyone on the same page as far as rules and expectations go. 

It’s a system that’s been successful, and it also means that Tyler isn’t needlessly interrupted before he’s ready to wrap up a class. 

So, obviously, the person at the door isn’t a parent at all. At least, not one that is familiar with Tyler’s teaching style.

This is evident for two reasons. 

The first one, as mentioned, being that he thought to knock in the first place.

But, Tyler supposes that’s just the Canadian manners coming out, given that the person at the door is in fact Jamie Benn. 

Tyler knows this because he too is Canadian. 

Tyler knows this because he’s been closely following the season of the Dallas Stars, and has been a fan of Benn ever since he was drafted 129th overall before being made Captain. 

Tyler knows this because he was already shitting himself when he found out he was teaching the daughter of Jordie Benn. 

He didn’t expect to meet Jamie Benn too.

Shit. 

Tyler fumbles for the tiara on his head, suddenly conscious, and throws it. Not in any particular direction. Just away. 

He pulls his phone from his pocket and presses pause, watching in amusement as the children respond to the quiet almost instantaneously. Little hands, previously full of rubbish and glitter and whatever else children manage to get their hands on, let go without thought, distracted. 

Tyler’s never particularly cared for a mess, partly because he’s a bachelor and partly because he’s a preschool teacher for a reason, but even he has to turn away. 

And that only gives him one other thing to look at.

“Jam!” 

Ellie breaks through the mess of disoriented children and actual, literal mess, running with her hands outstretched toward her uncle.

The way Jamie dodges her, a simple backward shuffle as she’s coming toward him with her dirty child hands, is impressive. 

Tyler is officially impressed with Jamie Benn for a multitude of reasons. 

“I didn’t say to stop cleaning!” Tyler informs his class, making a show of eyeing off each kid in warning.

Tyler’s teaching style is 90% bravado and 10% motivation to be employed for long enough to pay off his student loans.

He resumes the music, turning it down this time, and heads toward Ellie and Jamie. He brushes himself off, or at least tries to. Earlier, when they were still doing craft, he’d told the kids that he was worried the only way he’d ever be clean again was if he went through a car wash. They’d all giggled, but a part of him was telling the truth.

“I’d offer to shake your hand, but –” Tyler says, holding his hands up in explanation, “Ellie, can you please go pack up your desk for me?”

Jamie grimaces, but introduces himself before Tyler returns the favour. 

“Do I need to sign that one out?” He asks, gesturing over to where Ellie has opened her tray and is just sweeping the mess into it instead of over the bin. 

Jamie and Tyler take a moment to watch in horror.

“Have you picked her up before?” Tyler asks, because he’s legally obligated to do this when a new carer picks up a child even though he knows the identity of this person since their face is constantly plastered over Tyler’s Facebook news feed.

Jamie shakes his head, “No.” 

Tyler nods, “Okay, I need to see your ID,” and when Jamie doesn’t immediately hand it over, “Look, I’m Canadian too. I know who you are, but I need to do this in case Ellie’s parents turn around and say you tried to kidnap her.” 

Jamie gets out his wallet, flashing Tyler his driver’s license just as other parents begin to arrive to pick up their spawn. Tyler greets each of them as they pass, but he recognises them all and no one stops to try and interrupt. He high-fives each of the kids as they leave, promising that they’ll see him tomorrow. 

“I’m sorry I killed you,” Connor whisper-yells at Tyler on his way out the door, “I won’t do it again.” 

Tyler smiles, turns the high-five into a fistbump instead.

Jamie just stares.

“He didn’t want to do math,” Tyler explains. 

“Oh,” Jamie doesn’t look any less confused. 

Ellie announces she’s ready to leave by slotting her small hand into her uncle’s and tugging in the direction of the exit. Tyler kneels down to be at eye-level, feeling embarrassed that school policy has him doing this even though he’s sure that it’s all okay. 

“Ellie, it’s really important that you answer me with the truth, okay?” Tyler starts. 

He’s had kids joke about this before, which only makes it harder when he’s obligated to delay their pick-up and call their parents instead. 

Ellie nods, serious. 

She’s not one he’s particularly worried about lying just for the sake of it.

“Do you feel safe going home with Jamie?” 

Ellie contemplates the question, and then nods seriously. 

“Uncle Jam isn’t that bad at driving.” 

Tyler’s laughing so hard he misses Ellie’s hand when he high-fives her goodbye.

***

It’s Tyler’s first time taking parent-teacher conferences and he will straight up kill a dude if one more parent responds to Tyler’s, “What behaviour management strategies are you using at home?” with “Well, we saw this thing on Supernanny…”

The moment the second-last family leaves he groans, dropping his head on his desk. 

There’s only one more family he has to see. 

The end is near. 

He’s totally got this. 

There’s a knock at the door, a familiar knock because even tonight parents are just walking in, and Tyler lifts his head so quickly he’s surprised he didn’t pull something.

“Are we early?” Tyler’s favourite captain of his second-favourite hockey team asks. 

“Honestly, I was expecting Ellie’s parents. Not half a Dallas Stars line,” Tyler admits, unsure of why Jamie Benn is accompanying his brother to a preschool parent-teacher conference. 

Tyler doesn’t even want to be here. He can’t imagine why anyone else would, let alone Jamie Benn.

“Daddy’s waiting in the car if you think this will require a full line,” Jordie shoots back. 

“Jason Demers,” Jamie corrects. 

He shrugs when Jordie shoots him a look. 

Tyler doesn’t bother to touch that.

“Right, well. If you two want to take a seat,” he gestures to the two chairs in front of his desk.

Jamie and Jordie shove each other as they go to sit down, and Tyler has to stop himself from calling out a warning, “Boys!” like he would if they were his five-year-olds. 

“Right, well,” he starts, picking up the last file on his desk, “Ellie’s doing well. She’s developing on track with her age group. She likes free play. She shares with the rest of the kids. She’s always the first to volunteer when I ask for help.”

There’s a rule of thumb Tyler was told to follow when he was first starting out. When consulting with parents, always use a ratio of 3:1 compliments to criticisms. 

Jamie and Jordie must be expecting it too because they both brace themselves.

Jordie asks, “But?” in a tone that suggests Tyler’s answer will dictate whether the next scrum Jordie gets into on the ice is justified or simply out of anger.

“But,” Tyler pauses, trying to work out how to word this next bit, “She’s clearly the daughter of a hockey player.” 

Jamie frowns.

“Well, I mean, she is?” Jordie prompts. 

“Yesterday one of the other kids snatched her toy and she called them a ‘fucker’,” He pauses for Jordie to snicker, and also because he’s still tempted to laugh too, it had been a special kind of hilarious to see the look on Adam’s face when it happened, “and, look, she’s not wrong. Still, I can’t accept that kind of language in my classroom. It’s unacceptable, is what it is.” 

Jordie nods, clearly still trying to school his expression. 

“Did you just call a five-year-old a fucker?” Jamie asks, brow furrowed.

Jordie loses it again. 

Tyler’s tempted to lay his head back on the desk. 

***

Tyler’s got blood running down his shin, two paint-handprints staining either side of his shirt because Jack had gone in for a hug during painting before Tyler could stop him, and an army of small children in his ear about his life choices. 

How dare he try to mix things up a little bit and put on 5 Seconds of Summer instead of One Direction.

Even the boys are upset.

Tyler is singlehandedly shaking the foundations of their tiny universes. Everything they know and love. Gone. Just like that.

There’s a knock at the door.

Typical. 

“You don’t have to knock,” Tyler tells Jamie in a voice that is a mimic of someone suffering a psychotic breakdown. 

Typical.

***

It’s 3am and Tyler can’t sleep.

Tyler can’t do a lot of things, actually. 

Get laid, is the first that comes to mind. 

He’d gone to the bar to pick up and had gotten into an argument, with the only person he’d found attractive, over whether or not immunisations cause autism. Whatever. Tyler wasn’t going to give it up to someone who so blatantly denied science. Fuck them, but not, like, literally. 

Obviously.

Choosing between Chunky Monkey and Couch Potato is the second. 

Stop embarrassing himself in front of Jamie Benn is the third, and is the most subtle of all because Tyler doesn’t even realise he’s doing it until he turns around and there he is. 

The captain of Tyler’s heart in all his glory. 

Tyler hasn’t gotten a chance to watch the game yet, and he’s kind of buzzed, so he just reached out and slots his hand over Jamie’s mouth when it looks like he’s about to say something. 

“Shhh,” he hushes, “I’m saving myself.” 

He’s talking about the game, but the way Jamie’s eyes go wide makes it obvious that he’s misunderstood. 

Tyler looks at the pint of Couch Potato in his hand and puts it back in the freezer, reaching for the New York Super Fudge Chunk instead. 

Tyler puts his hands up in surrender and leaves. 

Jamie doesn’t follow him. 

Tyler pretends he’s not disappointed, but it’s okay. 

He has his ice cream (and his reasons).

***

Ellie’s parents are late. 

She’s the last one to be picked up, and Tyler’s ran out of ways to entertain her when he remembers the face-paint he’s been meaning to test out. 

Neither of Ellie’s parents have rung to explain that they’ll be late, and Tyler’s doing his best to keep Ellie from worrying. So, he asks Ellie if she’d like to paint his face to test out designs for the upcoming fete. 

She claps her hands together, apparently happy to stay indefinitely as long as she’s plied with face-paint. 

Tyler pushes his hair back out of his face, sitting down on the ground across from Ellie. She crawls closer and grabs the face-paint when he hands it over, asking what Tyler would like. 

“Can you surprise me?” He returns, not really caring what she paints as long as it comes off eventually. 

She nods and sets to work, tongue poking out between her lips in concentration. Time passes fairly quickly like that, and Tyler’s really beginning to worry now. It’s been more than half an hour since any of the other kids were at school, but Ellie doesn’t seem bothered. Is probably just used to her parents being busy. 

Tyler is just deciding whether or not he should try to call home when there’s a knock at the door. 

Relieved, Tyler doesn’t even bother to worry about being self-conscious. It’s been a long day. Ellie’s getting picked up. Thank God he no longer has to be the responsible one. 

“Is everything okay? Normally Jordie or Jess would call if they were going to be late.” 

Jamie shrugs, “They got caught up. How was she?” 

Tyler takes the face-painting things away from Ellie and turns to face Jamie, still too tired to care even when Jamie’s lips quirk in amusement. 

“She was good. I don’t think she even noticed.” 

Frowning, Ellie asks, “What didn’t I notice?” 

“How much mess you made!” Tyler gasps, looking around the room, “Did you bring every toy you own to school today? Quick, go pick them up.” 

There isn’t many, just one or two lying around where they’d been facing painting but Ellie walks around and dutifully makes sure she has everything. She checks and then double-checks her pigeonhole, much to Jamie’s amusement, and then tries to open Tyler’s top drawer to get back the ball he’d confiscated earlier in the day. 

“Nuh-uh,” he interrupts, “What are the rules when we’re in the room?” 

Ellie frowns, crossing her arms, “No playing with balls.”

“Right,” Tyler nods, and even though he has his own class and is a real adult, it still takes a lot of effort not to laugh at any kind of dick jokes.

Beside him, Jamie seems to be having the same problem.

“When did I say I’d give it back to you?” 

“At the end of the week,” she answers sullenly.

“And is it the end of the week yet?” 

She doesn’t answer, just stands there with her arms crossed and a frown on her face. 

“Ellie,” Jamie interrupts, voice commanding, “Mr. Seguin asked you a question. I know you wouldn’t just ignore him.” 

“No,” she says, voice small, but moving away from his desk. 

“Good girl,” Tyler praises, wondering if it’d be obvious if he started shepherding them out of the door. 

Evidently, Jamie has other plans because he stops to ask Tyler if there was possibly a way he’d be able to repay the favour. Like, dinner, for example.

“Like on a date?” Tyler asks. 

Tyler has to clarify, and later on he’s glad that he did. 

He doesn’t think he’ll ever get over the fact that Jamie Benn asked him out on a date while his face was caked with fluorescent pink in what Ellie promised was her best princess design. 

***

Jamie picks Tyler up in a truck. 

There’s hockey gear on the floor of the passenger seat, and Jamie has to reach over to throw it into the back. 

“I’m so sorry,” he apologises. 

“Dude, there’s nothing to apologise for.” 

Tyler doesn’t know why he just called Jamie Benn dude. He keeps getting caught between reminding himself he’s on a date with Jamie Benn, and reminding himself he’s just on a date with a dude he likes. That’s what this is, in the end. Tyler tries not to give too much of a shit that he’s on a date with a hockey player.

But, he is Canadian.

It’s hard. 

“You were the one who taught Ellie how to swear, didn’t you?” Tyler accuses halfway through dinner, when he’s become accustomed to Jamie punctuating his sentences with variations of the f-word. 

Jamie looks guilty, “I didn’t think she’d call someone a fucker!” 

“What was she supposed to do? Literally, what were you expecting?” 

Jamie shrugs. 

That poor, adorable idiot.

The thing about working with small children is that you quickly learn not to be embarrassed. Then Jamie Benn, the “fucker” in his own words, throws a spanner into the works and the only time you’re not embarrassed is when you’re too tired to be. 

It only takes five chance meetings and one expected date to reverse that, though.


End file.
